little girl, where's your light?
by Parapluie Lire
Summary: Bellatrix had a light once. It sparked and flickered but then it grew. Flaming up, it consumed everything and anyone in it's path. If you weren't dead you were hurt beyond repair. Then it was gone. Draco knows destruction, but he has a light too. It was dimmer than his Aunt's, but it burned all the same.


**A/N: Written for the Appleby Arrows, as Chaser 2 (aunt) my three extra promps:(saying)Laughter is the best medicine and (word)below (quote) "Courage without conscience is a wild beast." Robert Green Ingersoll**

**Epic Vocal Rock Challenge -String Theory, write about the black sisters; the Star Challenge- Acrux,write about the Cruciatus Curse; Fanfiction terms category competition- PM, write about someone lonely.**

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Bellatrix was a nasty child. She was a devilish teen and an evil woman. Everyday of her sixteenth summer she would do the same thing.

Walking out to the garden in a gray dress, she would dip her legs into the water of an old pond on the edge of the Black summer house. What did it matter that her stockings got wet and her shoes got soggy; she could always magic a solution.

But it was the repetition that she so easily fell into step to with. The pattern that she got addicted to. The predictability was enticing, she started one day and didn't stop.

Tearing up the fragile plant life with her toes, she'd tease every child or adult that she happened to spot.

Ripping out the thin stems by the dozen, she'd trample on their broken forms. An action she would later do with a flick of her wrist and impartial, almost lazy, crucio.

Nothing would be left, but like her, they'd sew themselves back up to return the next day.

_[it starts]_

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Draco was a young boy once. Sometimes his auntie Bella would visit.

He hated her visits.

She was always making fun of him and pinching his cheeks. It wasn't in adoration, but with a mocking smile that was too wide for her shallow face.

He did learn from her though.

He learned possibly the most important lesson of all. Proportion. She never even said a word but she was the textbook example of disproportionate. unbalanced inside and out.

He would never to become Aunt Bella.

_[It can breath]_

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Bellatrix was a talented child. A gifted teen and a brilliant woman. Searing passion bubbling beneath her skin begging to be released.

Deep bellow in the depths of her mind and soul there was magic. Such one would not see in decades, just going unused and waiting behind the cap.

Waiting to blow.

Healers would later study her behavior. They would conclude, years out of her death that it was a wonder she even made it to her late teens before breaking down. Magic came naturally to most. They were, of course, born with it. It was in the blood.

It was in _her_ blood.

Like most things, too much wasn't good. It was _bad_. Bad, bad, bad, was what echoed after the dark haired teen. Mad, mad, mad, then resounded as a woman.

Bellatrix had too much. Too much to control, and according to Perseus Seione William Fuffington, a magic expert twenty years after her death, too much to bear. She would have snapped sooner or later, too much overrides the body and the body, they say, tried to balance it all out.

Working tirelessly to control what went out and in.

It failed.

There was no balance.

[i_t sparks]_

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Bellatrix was a daring child. She was a courageous teen and a risky woman. Everyone knew, she was unlike anything. Wilder than a hippocampi and at one point, wise (and bitter) as Dumbledore. That was said, however, when she still had her sanity'

Now she was a woman. standing over the broken forms of her victims. The scene is familiar. They're the weeds at the bottom of the pond. A perfect analogy, mudbloods and sympathizes were the weeds of the Wizarding world. Unlike the weeds and Bella, they wouldn't re-grow.

Bellatrix was thankful. It made her duty so much easier.

That was the thing about mudbloods; they looked the same, acted the same but underneath all that _good_, they were weak. The couldn't mend themselves or re-grow. Once they were down they stayed down.

Torn up and lifeless on the pond floor, occasionally twitching with the subtile current.

_[Flickering]_

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Dark eyes looked out from under a mass of equally dark hair.

Standing regal and at the same time slightly crooked, Bella was in a category all her own.

The power was overwhelming. It swallowed her whole. Perhaps, she was destined for that cruel greatness. She was the unsaid house-hold name. Everyone knew the one who had gone bad. Unlike the blood traitor Andromeda or the perfect Narcissia, Bellatrix was different.

So much was clear as a child and further so as she aged. Fury was quick to begin and usually lasting, a trait that caught _his_ eye.

_He_ was the beginning. The seed or the possible accelerant to the so called madness.

_[ligh__ting the forest ablaze into an inferno_.]

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Looking into Dumbledore's eyes Draco saw forgiveness, something that was so out of place. Especially when he held a wand to the old man'a throat.

He had trained for this, he had prepared, but he was frozen in time. He couldn't move. He didn't want to really but she should have.

Aunt Bella questioned him why he didn't. He didn't have an answer.

_[Smoke rises]_

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With sweet word of revenge on the rat mudbloods, _he_ fueled the youth. Starting with the children and then breeding them to fester with more extreme views on their already placed ideals. The gave them the chance to take action and _do_ something about it.

Bellatrix would come home from those meetings during her time at Hogwarts, Andromeda would remember, all red faced and ecstatic. She would whisper wondrous lies and propaganda under the covers at their childhood home but what she would never tell what exactly happened at the 'grown-up' meeting that had conversed only three hours ago.

Their parents were proud and so was the rest of the family. Every Slytherin idolized her, she was a walking legend (still is, even so six feet under ground). Bellatrix's life, for a sliver of a second in the giant quantum mess of time, was perfect.

Andromeda's was just turning into her own personal hell.

_[It burns]_

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Narcissa wanted to be just like her - or she did, at one point. She even envied her oldest sister. She was the heroine saving them from the horrible deformities of nature(mudbloods). Bellatrix did it also so effectively, weeding them out and eliminating them. Narcissia wanted to be just like her, or she did at one point.

Who wouldn't?

But she watched her slip away. Andromeda left; she didn't see all of it. No, it was only Cissy to keep vigil as Bella clawed and screeched, clinging onto sanity.

Whether she knew it or not, Bella just gave up. One day a new fire burned in the oldest Black's eyes and it was twice as hot as it's former and ten times more chaotic. It wasn't inviting, instead it was terrifying.

_[like a lantern in the dark]_

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Andromeda too, looked up to her older sister. Bella was brilliant, commanding and impactful. Never one to settle for second place, Bellatrix was the devil but at the same time, beautiful and number one.

Then, Andy met Ted Tonks. Clumsy, lazy, charming and a muggleborn. She fell in love. There was nothing worse then what she did.

Fallen from grace, the middle angel ran away. Fleeing from what was once the Most Proud and Ancient House of Black, now just a musty tarnish on her new life and set of morals.

The robes of Slytherin that she had so valiantly donned during her Hogwartian career rotted, alone and forgotten in a moldy old box. She trained herself not to look at it whenever she visited the attic of the house she and her forbidden beloved owned. Not that she entered their attic often, but on those very rare occasions, her eyes skipped the raggedy box full of old treasures and cut ties.

There was nothing good to remember. All the good memories were the way that they gathered on her four poster bed to plot different ways of purifying the wizarding world. Nothing now that she would ever admit to. No, now, Andy Tonks was a changed woman.

_[the ground slips away]_

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Narcissia Malfoy promised herself that was well. She no longer looked up to dearest Bella, she had a family of her own to worry about. They had narrowly escaped Azkaban, she and Draco. Lucius, dear Lucius had been pegged to a wall and caught.

Draco now slept in the small apartment bedroom.

Malfoy Manor was currently undergoing it's third ministry administrated check for dark devices.

All the insufferable ministry workers found of value were the myriads of priceless artifacts and clothes. The only thing of intreast though, despite all the beautiful paintings, was a small locked box.

Charmed with a hereditary charm, only a descendent of Narcissa could open it. The box was unceremoniously taken and bagged as evidence. They couldn't open it and when scanned it was only came out to be a few slips of paper but the auror department hung onto it.

The tiny little box stayed in a musty evidence room until Draco was fifty nine and requested for it to be removed. He didn't recognize the small box from his childhood house as he led the army of ministry employees set on cleaning out the evidence e locker. There was no loss as he sent it away to be burned. He didn't remember, so why would anyone else?

However, that was years off. At the moment it was just a mother and her son.

Draco was of legal age to move out but he didn't. Such a sweet boy, his mother would say.

It was true, Draco wouldn't leave his mother, because without him, who would she have?

Certainly not Bella or Andy.

_[the world darkens.]_

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He watches her during meetings. His aunt, his superior and his family, how could his mother ever lived with the federal monster before him.

Laughing off every kill she made-one more body equaled another scream and high pitched giggle.

She came round every weekend. Sneering at his father calling him awful names. Only calming down when his mother locked herself and her sister into a room away from them, soothing her.

The calm only lasted so long, but by then, Auntie Bella was gone.

Disappearing in a huff, there was no denying the heartbroken look on his mothers face very day that she disapperated in the middle of their foyer.

Draco would learn love is a weakness. Useless and unpredictable. He believes it, lie or not, whole heartedly. After all, why else did his mother cry when she thought he was asleep. Why would she sacrifice and put her life on the line of him? Why would she be good in the horrible blackened world where good is a liability?

Why else would the most brave person that Draco ever knew crack and shatter.

The shards from his Mother was shrapnel in his body. She would pick them out one at a time and try to piece herself back together.

Trying so hard, it hurt him physically to see her fail time and time again.

Draco didn't know, but Bella shattered too.

Cissy had an impossible task; you cant fix yourself if you're too focused on helping someone else. Bella dealt, she laughed the pain away. At first it was awkward but it grew terrifying and spastic. Cissy tried to fix them both but all she could manage was to pick up the largest pieces, and re-create her facade.

Inside, she's still shattered, but now the broken glass was contained and controlled.

Bella atlas, couldn't build up her facade, her shrapnel was flung at anyone and everyone.

_[The light sputters]_

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No one. Her parents were dead, her sisters married off and absent. Her husband imprisoned, not that she cared much for him in the first place.

She still felt the open space. Slytherin tower was cold and to some, seemingly uninviting. So much was true if you weren't a Slytherin.

Slytherins on principle were flexible, dexterous and conniving. Once you had mastered and could play the game with the big kids the whole atmosphere charged.

There wasn't much in Bellatrix's apartment. It was cold and dark, steel counter tops, nothing here was a test of wit and social interaction. It was just her and the stainless steel pot steaming with tea.

In a desolate corner, there was a gilded box. Much too beautiful for Bellatrix to have bought recently. She had no need for fancy new things when she was saving the world from the taint of muggles.

Her eyes skipped over the emerald box and spinning around she slammed her fist onto her counter. Shoving the pot off the stove to watch it clang and slosh onto the floor, there was a lack of satisfaction. Her hand had blistered from the heat and was an alarming shade or rouge, but that didn't matter.

She had lost control of her broom and was spiraling down in a nose dive. Her hand was burnt, her floor was wet and her hair hung into her eyes.

Skirt soiled, she sunk to the marble and attacked the hard rock floor with her nails. She utterly and completely destroyed them. No pain registered as the nails broke and blood gushed out.

On the floor, she painted the ground with specks of flowing red. She speared and sculpted her masterpiece, crackling and smiling all the while.

She was alone and no one was there to witness her art.

So no one heard her scream. And scream she did. Loud and clear, until she went hoarse, because she could.

_[The darkness over comes, the light is snuffed out.]_

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Though inside those forgotten boxes were three identical photos. Each in a frame of their own, were three sisters.

There was Bella, the oldest with a closed mouth smile. If one looked closely at the photo they would see the small grass stains on Bella's stockings. She was always the adventurous one. Andy the middle child had a wide smile. Not too large and perfectly cultured to look, well, perfect. And then there was Cissy with a thin lipped crescent, ever so pleasant but not obnoxiously so. Even at age six Cissy was the good one.

Captured in a snap shot, they were together and united. Loving and happy, unlike their future where they would only see each other one last time before they died. On the battlefield.

Bellatrix would laugh, no longer just a courageous pioneer venturing into the unknown territory but a foolish girl out of her depth. Wadding helplessly in a pool too deep. She was the underwater plant life that just wouldn't die but just wasn't right either.

Tip toeing across the line of her mind, Bella spun wonderfully out of control and, for once in her life, nothing and everything made sense. The pounding headaches were gone and her magic was stronger, albeit unruly and wild.

_[The light is gone.]_

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Nineteen years later, Draco wondered what went wrong in her life. There was no way the wicked woman was a martyr, she wasn't a victim. Though was not, no matter how hard it was to wrap his mind around it, she wasn't a complete villain.

She was his aunt, an enigma, and possibly the powerful, yet disturbed, witches of the century.

_[darkness]_

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**A/N: I've been wanting to write something to do with the black sisters ever since I started my account. Finally, I have. Please take some time to review. **


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